Tom Cruise named 'tiresome tabloid target' at the Razzies

LOS ANGELES - And the loser is? Tom Cruise.

The A-list actor whose blockbuster hits, including last year's War of the Worlds, has won the Razzie award for "most tiresome tabloid target."

The Razzies, which parody self-congratulatory Hollywood award shows such as the Oscars by roasting the worst of Tinseltown, this year added the "most tiresome" category to salute "the celebs we're ALL sick and tired of".

Cruise won the award for his "antics with fiancee Katie Holmes." Cruise professed his love for the actress in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show last May where he jumped up and down on a sofa like a man possessed.

Cruise's behaviour spawned a slang phrase "jump the couch," meaning a defining moment when you know someone has gone off the deep end, providing endless material for late-night comedians.

Cruise then proposed to Holmes in June at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and announced their engagement the next day at a news conference, prompting speculation it was all a publicity stunt to promote their summer films - War of the Worlds for Cruise and Batman Begins for Holmes.

Cruise, a member of the Church of Scientology which eschews psychiatry, almost beat himself out for the award. He was also nominated for his attack on psychiatry and anti-depressant drugs made in an interview on NBC's Today show last June.

On the programme, he said "psychiatry is a pseudoscience," and said actress Brooke Shields should have used vitamins rather than anti-depressants to battle postpartum depression.

In other Razzies, Dirty Love, a movie written by and starring former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy took four honours, making it by far the worst movie of the year.

Billed by its producers as a "modern day Cinderella story," the movie grossed just US$58,116 ($88,497) and was drubbed by critics.

It won worst picture and McCarthy won worst actress and worst screenplay. McCarthy's former husband John Mallory Asher won worst director at the mock movie awards show in Hollywood.

"Even by the standards of its bottom-feeding genre, Dirty Love clings to the gutter like a rat in garbage," film critic Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times.

The worst actor award went to Rob Schneider for the title role of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

Hayden Christensen, who has won worst supporting actor once before for playing Anakin Skywalker, who grows up to be Darth Vader, won again for playing the same character in Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The Razzies mocked Christensen for playing Anakin Skywalker as "Darth Vader as a Back Street Boy gone bad."

Paris Hilton, described by the Razzies as being the "notorious air-headed heiress," won worst supporting actress for her death scene in House of Wax, a remake of the 1953 horror film starring Vincent Price.

"Paris Hilton, whose cinematic experience includes her infamous sex tape, can now add horror-film victim to her resume," the Boston Globe wrote of her performance. "For Hilton haters, the stupid and grotesque remake of House of Wax will only stoke their schadenfreude."

Rounding out the Razzies, Son of the Mask won worst remake or sequel and Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman won worst screen couple for their "less-than-bewitching chemistry" in Bewitched.

The Razzies are given by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation, which was formed to toast the worst of films, 24 hours before the Oscars tout the best.

Razzie "winners" were determined by mailing ballots to about 750 film professionals, film journalists and film fans from 41 US states and 15 foreign countries.

- REUTERS